I'm willing to bet the SMTs that are moderated with account-based style voting will attract much of the actual community engagement.
They may well capture community engagement, which is fine, and may add a lot of value (censorship resistance, accountability, etc.) But I doubt they will have large reward pools. I don't really see investors voluntarily signing up to have their capital redistributed via a one-account-one-vote system.
I'm perfectly okay with this.
I also agree with you that some SMTs may come up with their own hybrid or different (including semi- or completely-centralized) solutions. Steem itself doesn't seem to have one.
I know this will come as a ludicrous suggestion
I don't think so. I've proposed the same.